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“Man, am I glad I sent you that message. It’s so nice when they look better than their pics.” He leans back on his stool to check me out again, and I have to admit, he’s making me more uncomfortable than flattered. Much as I admired my reflection in my condo building’s front door before heading over here, I am not
all that
. I’m relieved when the bartender, a blond in a black V-neck T-shirt who could be Alexander Skarsgard’s twin, sets Chet’s beer before him.

“You want a glass with that?” The bartender points to the sweating brown bottle.

Chet winks at the kid and asks, “Do I have any other options?” I groan inside.

The poor bartender just looks confused. Then he smiles. “I don’t know. I think we’ve got an aluminum bowl in the back if you’d be interested.”

Chet shakes his head and reaches into his wallet and throws a ten on the bar, in spite of my having said I’d treat. “Keep the change, stud.”

The bartender grabs the cash from the bar and gives me a look. In the look, we’re both saying something along the lines of “Do you believe this character?” He hurries away, presumably to wait on less flirtatious and younger men. Or maybe to find out what the
Jeopardy!
response is to the answer displayed on one of the monitors: Arizona’s motto,
Ditat Deus
, means he “enriches.”

God
, I think,
the answer is God
.
A fella I fear whose help I’m going to need to call upon before this night is over.

I turn to the guy I agreed to meet, based only on about a dozen or so lines of type and a decade-old—at least—photograph and try to make the best of things. “So, Chet, do you come here a lot?”

He shakes his head and crinkles up his nose, as though he’d smelled something bad. “Nah. I just picked this place because it’s kind of neutral, you know?”

I shake my head.

“Pretty boys. Bright lights. Nothing too extreme.”

I think I see. “Good for meeting for the first time, huh?”

He leans in closer to me and slides his hand up farther on my leg toward my crotch. “Right.” He leans even closer and growls in my ear. “If I like the guy, we can always go someplace else.”

Like your place?
I wonder but don’t say. I lean back and away from him. He smells like cigarette smoke, Old Spice, and booze. I laugh and am embarrassed when it comes out a little high pitched. I try to get him back on course. “So where do you like to hang out?”

“So to speak?” He raises his eyebrows and laughs as though I said something filthy, and then I realize he’s making my reference to “hanging out” into something lascivious.

Why didn’t I call Jules and set something up? You know, the old saw where she would call a half hour after I meet my date, and if it wasn’t going well, I could say there was an emergency at home and I had to go?

“Yeah. Do you go to any other clubs?”

“Me, I like the leather bars.” He stares at me, and I wonder if he’s expecting me to rush in with something like “Oh, me too! I left my harness and chaps at home.”

“Yeah,” he says. “There’s no pretense there.”

Really? Men standing around in biker gear trying to look butch?
Okay….

“What I mean is,” Chet continues, “they don’t have game shows on the TVs, for Christ’s sake. Or run show tune videos like that joint down the street. They’re just about what we’re all here for.”

Although I know what he means by “what we’re all here for,” I ask Chet anyway. “What’s that?”

“Come on, Andy!” He rubs a hand over my chest and tweaks a nipple. I pull back. I can’t keep the scowl off my face. Undeterred, he leans forward once more to whisper throatily, “Fuckin’ and suckin’.”

I grab his hand, still on my chest, and return it to him, placing it carefully on his leg and nowhere near his crotch.

“I mean, why do gay men come out to the bars? To meet fuck buddies, right? We might as well be honest about it. I know I am. I like the leather bars because, even if I don’t meet a guy to bring home, I can always wander into the backroom and get a little somethin’-somethin’.” He laughs. “You know what I mean?”

I’ve had enough. I think I know this is going to go nowhere. Same old story. I feel a little sad. “No, I really don’t, Chet. When I go out, and it’s not that often anymore, it’s to meet up with friends, laugh, talk, have a few drinks.”

“And then go off to your bedroom and do the nasty.”

I sigh. I’m impatient now. “Well, I’d be lying if I said that never happened, but it’s usually more of a thing about circumstances turning a certain way, rather than something planned.”

“I was kind of
planning
on you and me getting together tonight.” He jerks his head toward the door behind him. “I live just around the corner. On Cornelia?” He says, in a softer voice, “Got the sling all set up.”

I laugh. “We have an optimist here!”

“What? You agreed to meet up with me.”

“And that means I agreed to have sex with you?”

“Well, yeah. That’s what guys go online looking for, right? I mean, what else is there?”

I wanted to answer—romance, companionship, friendship, maybe, just maybe, finding true love. But I have a feeling that our Chet here is too far gone for any of those responses to resonate. Concepts like love and friendship would be lost on him. I don’t think his thought processes go any higher than above the belly button. It’s kind of sad, really. Like his clothes, I suspect Chet is stuck in a kind of faux masculine adolescence. At the end of the night, when he’s alone and covered with sticky lube and his latest conquest is but a memory, does he ever hunger for
more
?

“For some, I guess, not much.” Finally I allow myself to touch him, putting a hand on his shoulder. As much as I’m a big old introvert and hate confrontation of even the mildest sort, it’s not that hard to be honest, because I know at the end of what I have to say, I’ll be free. “Listen, Chet, I think you and I are after different things.” I gulp down what remains in my glass and set it back on the bar. “I’m gonna take off. Thanks for coming out to meet me.”

He sneers. “What are
you
after? True love?”

I get down from the barstool and stand, facing him. “Yup,” I say and turn to walk out the door.

“Good luck with that!” he calls out behind me. “You’re gonna need it.” He pauses. “At your age.”

He laughs, and my consolation is that no one laughs with him. I slip outside into the exhaust-choked air, feeling like I can breathe again.

W
HEN
I
get home, I’m tired, even though it’s still early. There’s just been too much disappointment shoved down my throat recently, and it’s worn me out.

I consider my options. Maybe turn on the TV? Go through my growing list of DVR’d options and winnow it down a bit? The advantage is I could lose myself in oblivion for at least a couple of hours or fall asleep on the couch. I’d get up and go to bed when my snoring woke me. It wouldn’t be the first time! The thought depresses. I can always move into the office and bring up OkCupid and try my luck again—maybe be a little more proactive this time, seek out a man whose description and picture not only seem honest but jibe with what I actually want.

Nah, not right now
. The thought of doing that is even more depressing.

On a brighter note, I could take a walk down to the lakefront. It’s a nice night out, and the breezes, for the first time this spring, are actually warm. I picture the beach at the east end of Lunt, its sprawling sandy mass bordered by trees, the breakwater you can walk out on and catch a lovely view of the nighttime skyline.
Yeah
, I think, standing,
that’s the way to go.
It’ll both calm and relax me, and it’s less isolating than sitting here alone, my face illuminated by the flickering light of the television screen.

Ezra follows me to the door, meowing. I look down at him. “You know you can’t come with me,” I say, reaching down to scratch behind his ears. I stand back up and tell him, “You think you want to go out there, but thirty seconds with the traffic and the trains and the voices and you’ll be scared out of your wits.” As though he understands, he stalks away, tail up, and hops up to occupy the spot I just sat in on the couch. It’s warm. He settles in, and before I even close the door, I can tell his eyes are about to close.

Outside, Rogers Park is alive, hopped up, especially along Clark, where bright lights from restaurants, bars, and stores staying open late have a steady stream of customers entering and exiting. There’s a street vendor at the corner, selling churros, corn on the cob, and mangos with chili powder and lime juice. Groups of teenagers, more like packs, wander up and down the street. Traffic is heavy. A big black girl in a white midriff top screams to her friend, “Oh, she think she so hot. But did you see that chipped toenail polish? She ain’t all that!” Her friends scream with laughter.

I’m relieved to get away from the hustle and bustle of the commercial avenue. Just another block or so east and it’s much quieter, the street lined with trees whispering in the wind and two- and three-flat apartment buildings. A man walks by me with a Boston terrier on a red leash.

As I near the lakefront, I can first smell the fishy yet pleasant aroma of the water and then, almost simultaneously, hear the rush of the surf as it pounds relentlessly at the beach. The soft lap of the water is immediately calming, putting all thoughts of Chet and Carlos and men in general out of my head.

I find a bench and sit down in the shadows afforded by a tree. I think how it will be great just to sit here and watch the occasional biker, runner, or walker go by and simply listen to the surf.

Clear my head. Not think.

But that’s not to be. I hear the ringtone of my iPhone in the pocket of my jeans, and I grope for it.
Technology these days,
I think for the thousandth time,
has made us its slaves.
Why can’t I just let the damn thing go to voice mail? Once that tone sounds, it’s like I’m prodded with something electric to respond.

Once I see the face on my screen, though, I’m glad I got the phone out of my pocket in time. It’s Tate. His smiling, handsome, and dark-bearded face looks up at me from the screen, and just the sight of my boy warms my heart like a balm on the soul. More than the calming lakefront, seeing my son’s face is enough to wipe away the sadness and make me realize that, in spite of it all, I do have someone in my life who loves me.

And maybe that’s all I need.

I press the screen to answer. “Hey, Tate, how are you?”

“Good, Dad. What are you up to?”

“Just sitting down here at the beach at the end of the street, taking in the night air and relaxing.”

“That sounds perfect. I envy you. I’m hyped up on coffee, trying to pull an all-nighter so I can get my final paper done for Russian lit.”

We talk for a while about the passion I helped instill in him for Russian writers like Bulgakov, Pasternak, and Nabokov. Tate is working toward a degree in English literature and hopes to be a professor one day. For a while he had writing aspirations like his dad, but I’m glad he’s taken a road that’s maybe just a little less fraught with heartache, rejection, and the odds being against you.

“So what tears you away from the Russian masters? Just need a study break?”

“Actually, I was thinking about you, wondering what you’re doing this weekend. It’s been too long since I’ve seen you.”

I agree. It’s been at least a month. The last time we got together was when I had him and his boyfriend-of-the-moment over for dinner—ahi tuna on a bed of couscous with herbs and fresh vegetables. I think the aroma of the onions lingered longer than Tate’s boyfriend did. I can’t for the life of me even remember the young man’s name, let alone what he looked like. But Tate’s young and—God bless him—not looking to find anyone “special” at this point in his life, a viewpoint I wholeheartedly support.

“Would you believe your dad has no plans? No weekend work, Lord knows no dates, and Jules is out of town this weekend, going up to Lake Geneva to her folks’ place.”

“Good! Then you can come with me to a party.”

“Oh, Tate, wait a minute. As much as I’d love to see you, and I would, a party? Really? I think I’m a little long in the tooth for a college party. My skinny jeans are at the cleaners.” I chuckle.

Tate doesn’t say anything for a minute. “Jump to conclusions much?”

“What?”

“I never said this was a college party. You should know better.” He laughs. “How pathetic would I look, showing up with dear old Dad to a college bash?”

“You’ve got a point. But I don’t know. Why don’t you just come over for dinner before your party? I’ll make that oven-fried chicken you like.”

“I’ll take you up on that. And then, after dinner, we’ll go to the party. It’s not far from your place. We can walk. In fact, if you’re at the beach right now, you can probably see my friend’s dad’s building, where it’s going to be. You’ve heard me mention Abra, my friend?”

“The one who also has the curse of a homosexual father?”

“That’s the one! We compare horror stories. Anyway, it’s Abra’s birthday, and her dad’s throwing a get-together for her. I thought it might be nice for you to come along.”

“And meet him? Is this a fix up?”

“There you go again, jumping to conclusions.” He sighs. “You know, it might just be
I
want your company. Contrary to what you might think, you make me laugh. With you, not at you.” He pauses. “Much. So say you’ll go.”

“Okay, since it’s in the ’hood, I can duck out if I’m feeling shy.”

“Deal. But I hope you’ll have a good time. Abra’s father’s a hoot.”

“Are you sure you’re not trying to fix me up?” I ask, suspicious.

“Dad, the last thing I want to do is fix you up. The very idea of you hooking up with someone is something I choose
not
to think about.”

I feel the very same way. Being a gay father and son does not mean we share our sexual escapades—as if I had any!—but we do share the very normal aversion to picturing either parents or their kids engaging in anything below the waist.